ANZAC Day 2012 At The Going Down Of The Sun, I Remember

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G'day All,

Today was ANZAC day in Australia.

As I have said before: Soldiers are never the winners, only casualties and survivors.

Please be respectful of those who have lost family and friends if you wish to contribute to this thread.

In memory of the fallen:

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This is an excerpt from the Remembrance Day Speech (https://www.awm.gov.au/commemoration/keating.asp) by then Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating (Nov. 11 1993) at the funeral of the Unknown Soldier:


Because the Great War was a mad, brutal, awful struggle, distinguished more often than not by military and political incompetence; because the waste of human life was so terrible that some said victory was scarcely discernible from defeat; and because the war which was supposed to end all wars in fact sowed the seeds of a second even more terrible war – we might think this Unknown Soldier died in vain.

But, in honouring our war dead, as we always have and as we do today, we declare that this is not true. For out of the war came a lesson which transcended the horror and tragedy and the inexcusable folly. It was a lesson about ordinary people – and the lesson was that they were not ordinary. On all sides they were the heroes of that war; not the generals and the politicians but the soldiers and sailors and nurses – those who taught us to endure hardship, to show courage, to be bold as well as resilient, to believe in ourselves, to stick together.

The Unknown Australian Soldier whom we are interring today was one of those who, by his deeds, proved that real nobility and grandeur belongs, not to empires and nations, but to the people on whom they, in the last resort, always depend.

That is surely at the heart of the ANZAC story, the Australian legend which emerged from the war. It is a legend not of sweeping military victories so much as triumphs against the odds, of courage and ingenuity in adversity. It is a legend of free and independent spirits whose discipline derived less from military formalities and customs than from the bonds of mateship and the demands of necessity. It is a democratic tradition, the tradition in which Australians have gone to war ever since.

Full speech transcript available here (https://www.awm.gov.au/commemoration/keating.asp) and audio here (https://www.awm.gov.au/media/keating.mp3).

At the going down of the Sun I remember a man who lay close to death on the field of battle in France (24 April 1918) for days without food or water and only his belief in individual freedom and liberty to keep him alive.

I'm glad the maggots saved you -- literally.
Kind Regards, :yo:
Panopticon

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Kemal Atatürk, the Commander of the Turkish 19th Division at Gallipoli (also the first President of the Turkish Republic from 1924-1938) wrote these words in 1934 in remembrance and tribute to the fallen Australian soldiers:


Those heroes that shed their blood and lost their lives. You are now living in the soil of a friendly country therefore rest in peace. There is no difference between the Johnnies and the Mehmets to us where they lie side by side here in this country of ours. You, the mothers, who sent their sons from faraway countries wipe away your tears; your sons are now lying in our bosom and are in peace. After having lost their lives on this land they have become our sons as well.

His words are also commemorated at Anzac Cove in Turkey (http://www.anzacsite.gov.au/2visiting/walk_03anzaccove.html) and the Kemal Atatürk Memorial (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kemal_Atat%C3%BCrk_Memorial,_Canberra) on ANZAC parade (http://nla.gov.au/nla.pic-an23814154):

http://www.anzacsite.gov.au/2visiting/images_walk/03_ataturkpoem.jpg (http://www.anzacsite.gov.au/2visiting/walk_03anzaccove.html) http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/cd/AS_Kemal_Ataturk_3.jpg/200px-AS_Kemal_Ataturk_3.jpg (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cd/AS_Kemal_Ataturk_3.jpg)
Kind Regards, :yo:
Panopticon

[panopticon]

The 2nd Battle For Villers–Bretonneux 24 April 1918

This is taken from the Australian Government website about Australians on the Western Front in the First World War (http://www.ww1westernfront.gov.au/villers-bretonneux/second-battle-of-villers-bretonneux.html) and describes the 2nd battle for Villers–Bretonneux, a defining moment in World War 1, Australian history and my family. In remembrance of the 51st Battalion (http://www.awm.gov.au/units/unit_11238.asp), 13th Brigade, 4th Division.

http://www.ww1westernfront.gov.au/villers-bretonneux/images/awm-art03028.jpg (http://www.ww1westernfront.gov.au/villers-bretonneux/second-battle-of-villers-bretonneux.html)

On 24 April 1918 the Germans had taken Villers–Bretonneux and were pushing out west of the town in the direction of Amiens. As soon as this grave news was relayed to British headquarters ‘orders showered down’, in Charles Bean’s words, to retake this vital position from whose commanding heights north of the town the spires of Amiens Cathedral were clearly visible. Along with some British battalions, the job of retaking Villers–Bretonneux was assigned to two Australian brigades of the 4th and 5th Divisions – the 13th, commanded by Brigadier–General William Glasgow, and the 15th, commanded by Brigadier–General Harold ‘Pompey’ Elliott.

The plan to recapture Villers–Bretonneux was relatively simple, but difficult and dangerous. The Germans had been able to place a significant number of men and machine guns in the town and along the railway embankment to the south and west. Strong enemy elements had also established themselves in the woods to the west of the town. The Australian plan was for a surprise night attack, with no preliminary artillery bombardment. Two battalions (the 51st and 52nd Battalions, about 1,500 men) of the 13th Brigade, 4th Division, would attack to the south of Villers–Bretonneux towards the east. Three battalions (the 57th, 59th and 60th Battalions, about 2,400 men) of the 15th Brigade, 5th Division, would similarly attack from the north of the town towards the east and then swing south–east to the old Roman road heading out of Villers–Bretonneux. Thus would the Germans be encircled and trapped.

By dawn on 25 April, the 51st and 52nd Battalions had not quite achieved their objectives but they had broken through the German positions to the south of Villers–Brettoneux and established a fairly secure line.

The northern attack battalions formed up in the dark along the Fouilloy–Cachy road to the west across the fields from the entrance to the Villers–Brettoneux Military Cemetery and the Australian National Memorial and did not begin their advance until an hour after the appointed time. The battalions then moved up out of the valley, and over the ground on which the cemetery and memorial now stand, through to the Villers–Bretonneux–Le Hamel road not far beyond the back of the memorial.

And so by the morning of 25 April 1918 the men of the AIF, with some assistance by British units, had virtually surrounded Villers–Bretonneux. It took the rest of that day and into 26 April to completely secure the town and to establish a new front line east of it. This, the Second Battle of Villers–Bretonneux, had been a remarkable achievement and a clear-cut success for the AIF. It marked the end of the great German offensive on the Somme which had begun so successfully on 21 March 1918 and, as the historian of the 5th Division concluded, ‘Thereafter, no German ever set foot in Villers–Bretonneux save as a prisoner of war.’

You lay bleeding and going in and out of consciousness for days until someone noticed a twitching hand amongst the corpses.
Your leg was taken high on the thigh but you survived.
Never shall you be forgotten as long as this story is told.

As was your wish: I remember that I walk with others, respect their opinions and beliefs, yet none shall I bow down before.
Kind Regards and Deepest Respect, :yo:
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